NY Minute: What does Carl Paladino's victory mean for state GOP?

Don Heupel / The Associated PressCarl Paladino on stage after winning the New York State Republican gubernatorial primary in Buffalo, N.Y. on Tuesday, Sept. 14, 2010.

Buffalo multimillionaire and Tea Party favorite Carl Paladino has defeated Republican designee Rick Lazio in the race for the GOP nomination for New York governor. What does this mean for the Republicans' chances of winning against Democratic candidate Andrew Cuomo? Here's what some have to say:

The result was a potentially destabilizing blow for New York Republicans. It put at the top of the party’s ticket a volatile newcomer who has forwarded e-mails to friends containing racist jokes and pornographic images, espoused turning prisons into dormitories where welfare recipients could be given classes on hygiene, and defended an ally’s comparison of the Assembly speaker, Sheldon Silver, who is Jewish, to “an Antichrist or a Hitler.”
Yet Mr. Paladino, 64, energized Tea Party advocates and social conservatives with white-hot rhetoric and a damn-the-establishment attitude, promising to “take a baseball bat to Albany” to dislodge the state’s entrenched political class. He also outspent Mr. Lazio, pouring more than $3 million of his fortune into the race, while Mr. Lazio spent just over $2 million.

Michael Caputo, Paladino’s campaign manager, looked sincere when he reiterated the candidate’s invitation for all Republicans to now fall in behind him.

“They matter a lot — in fact, we’re going to need every single one of them to win,” Caputo said of the county chairs who have consistently opposed Paladino, written him off and even denounced him. “I wanted to be the guy handing out the pink slips, but now I think I’m just going to be the guy right next to Carl Paladino all the way to Andrew Cuomo’s house.”

Without diminishing what Paladino accomplished, there are more than a few people to point the finger at for blame.

While Paladino rode a tea party wave - one which was easy to underestimate, including by yours truly, in the state given that it's less centralized in New York than elsewhere - he could not have accomplished what he did had Lazio not been such a poor candidate, in every sense of the word.

... the reckless statements, hollow promises and dumb ideas that have been coming from the Buffalo millionaire's mouth mean his GOP running mates will have to spend the next seven weeks fending off questions about his every outrage and gaffe.

"He will be extremely harmful to the party," says Susan Del Percio, a Republican strategist not involved in any New York races.

"You're going to see a lot of people extremely turned off by the Republican brand because of him. . . . And candidates running down ballot will be forced to distance themselves."